Chapter 44 : Patron, Please Keep Me (24)

The Little Meatball fans immediately burst out and suppressed those who were prepared to laugh at Shi Sheng. ‘Look see, even if he doesn’t have a verified account he is still awesome as balls! This is what our Little Meatball’s patron has to be!’

Fang Liqiu had quite a lot of fans too. Their thoughts upon seeing her post went something like: ‘Our goddess is openly begging to be kept on Weibo? Goddess, even though you’re very… open, but please be more conservative, okay?’

‘And isn’t Su Yixiu the boss of Youjian Entertainment? If even he’s asking for a salary, doesn’t that mean this guy is the boss’ boss? Heavens, what is happening? Someone come and tell us who Lu Qingyun is!!!’

Some people wanted to find out who he was but they couldn’t dig up anything on him at all. After all, there was just a name and a blurry profile. There wasn’t even a phone number, how were they supposed to investigate him? Even if it was possible, it wouldn’t be completed in a short amount of time.

Hence some people started to say that all of this was staged and that the followers list was faked.

This was immediately rebuked with, [Then you fake a followers list filled completely with verified accounts!]

The online community was on the verge of breaking out into a full-blown flame war yet there was still no reaction from Lu Qingyun. People who had some technical skills started investigating the last time the Weibo account had been logged on yet they found that the one and only time he had logged on was to send that post with a link in it.

Everyone pretty much just stared stupidly at their screens. ‘What happened to the promised patron? How come he’s just gone poof?’

……

While Shi Sheng’s page was rowdy, Xia Xuan’s troubles hadn’t ended. Because the studio had stated that they weren’t done, quite a few people were waiting for more information. Not long after Shi Sheng’s Weibo posted that message, the studio updated too.

The contents were a bit special this time. It was a group photo. Everyone in it was very young, around the age of University students. The background was one of the Universities in the country. Xia Xuan was standing in the middle, looking cheekily adorable and lively. This looked like a normal group photo, nothing seemed out of the norm. However, Xia Xuan gasped upon seeing this. If she had still held some hope before, then now it was completely gone, leaving only endless fear.

Xia Xuan’s hands trembled as she dialled her mother’s phone number. Only after a few tries did she finally manage to make the call.

“Mom, have you investigated it yet?” Xia Xuan’s voice was shaking, revealing how insecure she felt right now. “There’s s-someone on the internet… wh-who exposed the group photo of me and those people… They definitely know what happened back then. Mom, save me! I don’t want to be arrested!”

Strange sounds could be heard on the other end. Xia Xuan could hear her father’s unhappy grumbling as well as her mother attempting to soothe him before it quietened down. “Xia Xuan, just who have you offended? Do you know how serious this is?”

“I haven’t…” Xia Xuan weakly denied before Jiang Wan’s face floated in her mind. ‘Could it be her? Would she really have been able to dig out what happened so long ago?’

“Xuanxuan, think harder. Who have you offended? Those people back then all had a part in that matter so they definitely couldn’t have been the ones to reveal it.”

“There are still their family members. Could it have been them?”

It went silent on that end for a while. The only thing Xia Xuan could hear was her mother’s slightly heavy breathing. Xia Xuan was on the verge of full-blown panic as she spoke in a voice filled with sobs and begging, “Mom, say something. I don’t want to be ruined, come and save me…”

“Xuanxuan, let’s meet up and discuss this.” Her mother gave her an address before hanging up.

When Xia Xuan met her mother, she hugged her mother and sobbed painfully. In the past few days, she had been living while dealing with the fears of her past being revealed, falling from her pedestal and the prospect of being cursed at by the world.

While this mother and daughter pair were having their discussion, the online community were going wild.

After that photo had been posted, a few more photos were posted soon after. They were pictures of Xia Xuan and that group of youths torturing two young ladies.

Following this, a video was posted about how that group of youths had conducted the torture. They had chosen areas that wouldn’t be easy to spot nor leave behind noticeable marks. After the torture, they’d even help their victims heal their wounds so that they could better continue it.

The victims of the abuse were the two young ladies as well as a young lad. For the sake of protecting the victims, their faces had been censored out. The process of their torture stretched out for a long time but throughout, those watching only felt terrified and cold inside. After all, all the people in the photos and video were still children!

[Was Xia Xuan one of the torturers? How could she do such a thing? I liked her so much too, I hadn’t thought she’d actually be this cruel.]
[Who are those people in the picture? Someone go and find out! These monsters were actually allowed to go unpunished by the law!]
[The background kinda looks like 211 University. I remember there was this one unresolved case that happened there. It caused quite a ruckus back then. The mutilated corpses of a male and a female were found in an abandoned building on campus.]
[I studied at 211 University and just so happened to be graduating that year. I went to take a look at the scene before. Till now I still have nightmares, it was too cruel.]
[Could Xia Xuan be a murderer?]
[I recognise the person beside Xia Xuan, it’s Hu Meng. Not long after this matter, Hu Meng transferred schools. I heard people say that Hu Meng seemed to have left the country…]
[If you guys don’t have proof, don’t speak nonsense! Xia Xuan is definitely not that kind of person!]
[Yeah! Our Xuanxuan is so kind, how could she be a murderer?]
[Xia Xuan also left the country that year. It was around a month after the mutilated body case at 211 University.]
[Die-hard fans are still protecting a murderer. Are you guys sick in the head? You actually like a murderer! Is this the so-called birds of a feather, flock together?]

More and more internet users worked together to dig up the identities of the people in the pictures. They all had pretty good backgrounds, having rich or influential parents. All of them had also left the country around a month after the mutilated body case of 211 University.

With their status, they could have easily escaped justice after killing someone.

People started contacting 211 University and the police.

The internet right now was a storm with countless people pointing fingers at Xia Xuan and her fellow torturers.

Back then how old had they been? They couldn’t have been more than 20! It was meant to be an age where they were naïve and pure but what were they doing? They were torturing their fellow schoolmates! There was even a possibility of them being murderers. Yet such dangerous people were actually public figures.

211 University replied very quickly, though it was very official. Their stand was that a few photos and a video was not enough to prove Xia Xuan was the murderer and hence they hoped people would not spread malicious rumours. The police did not give a reply.

Author’s note:

There are a lot of torture cases these days, I’m scared. All of you have to be adorable little angels, okay? You have to be cute and adorable for people to like you *mwa*~

Wenhui is a kind and caring translator who couldn’t resist sharing her love for novels with everyone out there. She was so eager to share it, that she went as far as to create a blog just for that very purpose. Her editor Reekahia was lured in for the ride …